Russian film awards snub Oscar nominee Leviathan for best picture

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jan/26/golden-eagle-awards-russia-leviathan-andrey-zvyagintsev

Version 0 of 1.

The Golden Eagle awards, Russia’s equivalent of the Oscars, have snubbed Leviathan by not awarding it the best picture prize.

Leviathan, a bleakly mordant drama about a man battling local bureaucracy, is nominated for the best foreign film Oscar, and is a favourite after having won the same category at the Golden Globes. It has been publicly criticised by the Russian authorities for its apparently unpatriotic tone, with culture minister Vladimir Medinsky saying: “However much the authors made the characters swear and swig litres of vodka, they are not Russians. I did not recognise myself, my colleagues, friends or even friends of friends in Leviathan’s characters.”

Related: Oscar-nominated Leviathan upsets officials in native Russia

The Golden Eagle voters were still impressed with the film, however – Andrey Zvyagintsev was named best director, while Yelena Lyadova won best actress, and Roman Madyanov won best supporting actor, the latter performance singled out as “wonderful” by the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw.

The best film prize was given to Sunstroke, a historical film set looking at the Russian civil war of the early 1920s – its themes, and setting in the Crimea, made it particularly resonant given recent tensions with Ukraine. “We tried to make these pictures for 37 years. We did not know that it would be so relevant today because it tells about totally different things. Two years ago we shot it in Odessa. That Odessa no longer exists,” said director Nikita Mikhalkov, whose film Burnt By the Sun won the best foreign film Oscar in 1994.

Vladimir Putin released a statement ahead of the awards, congratulating the nominees. “It is important that today, Russian films not only strengthen their positions in the domestic box office, but are also receiving good reviews from the international film community,” he said. “All of this clearly demonstrates the enormous potential of our film industry and inspires the masters to create new, interesting works.”